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Video: Islamist rebels withdraw from Somali capital

Transcript of: Islamist rebels withdraw from Somali capital

LESTER HOLT, anchor:For millions of people starving in the
Horn of Africa
, a stunning development today and the first ray of hope in months.
Islamist
rebels who had been blocking desperately needed aid deliveries appear to have pulled out of the Somali capital of
Mogadishu
. It's a move that could be a turning point in the violence and famine in
Somalia
. Our chief foreign correspondent
Richard Engel
is there.

RICHARD ENGEL reporting:At a
health clinic
in
Mogadishu
, it's hard to see how malnourished
Mirian
is, until her grandmother takes off her shirt.
Mirian
weighs only nine pounds, a little more than when she was born two and a half years ago, but she's getting better. She can drink from a bottle and keep the liquids down. But at this clinic, everyone had some relief today.
Al-Qaeda
-backed militants unexpectedly left
Mogadishu
overnight. For three years, a violent militia called
al-Shabaab
has been hated here. It banned music and gold, and imposed harsh
Islamic law
. But when the
Taliban
-style militants banned foreign food relief, it was too much for women like
Ido Hasan
. She lost two of her children to the famine.

Ms. IDO HASAN:

ENGEL:'
Al-Shabaab
denied food access to our region. We hate them for that,' she said. African peacekeepers here were stunned this morning to find
al-Shabaab
out of the city. It could be a temporary withdrawal, the militants could still do suicide attacks, but
Somalia
's prime minister told me it's none the less a victory for his government, which yesterday only controls half of
Mogadishu
.

Dr. ABDIWELI MOHAMED ALI (Somali Prime Minister):I think the only reason that they left the
capital city
is because they lost the fight.

ENGEL:We traveled by convoy with the African peacekeepers through newly taken land, to the old soccer stadium. This was the main
al-Shabaab
training camp in
Mogadishu
; explosives, snipers. This is where the militants made almost all of their videos. Now, the
Shabaab
appear to have left. Violence in
Somalia
won't stop. But denying food to starving people may have cost
al-Shabaab
a key stronghold in
Mogadishu
that could be difficult to take back.
Richard Engel
, NBC News,
Mogadishu
.

HOLT:Many of you have been asking how to help. We have been compiling a list of charities on our
Web site
. The address is nightly.msnbc.com.

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Islamist forces pulled out of many of their bases in the Somali capital of Mogadishu overnight, government and rebel spokesmen said Saturday.

"The information we are receiving is that there is a retreat from the city. This is a golden victory for the Somali people and we are committed to ensure that peace and order is restored to those areas," said government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman.

However, Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamed Rage told a local radio station that the retreat was a tactical withdrawal to enable a counterattack.

He said they would not be leaving any other regions of southern Somalia.

"The retreat by our forces is only aiming to counterattack the enemy. People will hear happy news in the coming hours," Rage said. "We shall fight the enemy wherever they are."

The extent of the withdrawal — or what it means — was not immediately clear.

Families from southern Somalia wait for food rations at Maalin refugee camp at Hawlwadag district in Mogadishu on Sept.15. Somalia is the country worst affected by a severe drought in east Africa and the Horn that has left some 13 million people in danger of starvation.
(Abdurashid Abikar / AFP - Getty Images)
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Somali refugees stand amid graves in a makeshift graveyard at Ifo camp, one of three camps that make up the sprawling Dadaab refugee complex in Dadaab town, northeastern Kenya, on Sept. 5.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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Somali refugee children sit in a circle with wooden boards inscribed with lines from the Quran, in the outskirts of Ifo camp, Dadaab refugee complex, northeastern Kenya, on Sept. 6.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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Somalian women queue for food at the Gift Of The Givers makeshift feeding center on Sept. 10 in Mogadishu. Gift Of The Givers is a South African-based disaster relief organization that is providing medical assistance and food aid to the famine-stricken people of Somalia.
(Gallo Images / Getty Images Contributor)
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Tahliil Hussan holds an X-ray that shows the bullet still lodged in his abdomen at the Forlanini Hospital on Sept. 11 in Mogadishu, Somalia. A delegation from Gift Of The Givers Foundation is providing medical services to the famine-stricken in Somalia.
(Gallo Images / Getty Images Contributor)
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A newly arrived Somali refugee boy tries to drink from a cup as he waits in line with his mother at a refugee reception center at Hagadera camp, one of three refugee camps that make up sprawling Dadaab refugee complex in Dadaab town, northeastern Kenya, on Sept. 5.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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A newly arrived Somali refugee woman sobs as she is confined inside a makeshift cell for not following the procedures at a refugee reception center at Hagadera camp, northeastern Kenya, on Sept. 5.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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Refugees who have been living on the outskirts of the camps in Hagadera rush to load their belongings onto trucks as they choose to relocate to the newly-opened Kambioos settlement, at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya on Aug. 29. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees regularly logs more than 1,000 new arrivals from Somalia each day as the region's famine crisis continues.
(Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
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Men make donations to help the people of Somalia in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Aug. 22. A famine has swept across the Horn of Africa, leaving at least 3.7 million Somalis at risk of starvation.
(Fahad Shadeed / Reuters)
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Weak and malnourished, Hassan Ali Musa, 4, sits with his father Iisa Ali Musa at the Banadir hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Aug. 20. The U.N. estimates that more than 100,000 Somalis have fled to Mogadishu from famine and drought in the countryside.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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A famine refugee plays with a soccer ball next to a camp for people displaced by drought and famine in Mogadishu on Aug. 18.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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A security guard beats a woman for trying to enter a feeding center at a camp for people displaced by drought and famine in Mogadishu on Aug. 18.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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Somalis receive medical treatment at an outpatient hospital run by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in Mogadishu on Aug. 17. More than 10,000 people are treated monthly at AMISOM's three hospitals in Mogadishu. Ugandan doctors there say that increasingly many of the ailments, especially among children, are related to malnutrition.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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A security guard stands vigil outside a feeding center in Mogadishu on Aug. 16. The center, which serves cooked meals prepared using World Food Program aid, helps feed thousands of Somalis who have fled famine and drought in the countryside and have settled in makeshift camps throughout Mogadishu.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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An internally displaced Somali woman attends to her malnourished son at the Banadir hospital in Mogadishu on Aug. 16. Somalia called for the creation of a new force to protect food aid convoys and camps in the famine-hit country.
(Ismail Taxta / Reuters)
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Relatives of Hassan Abdulkadir Adan, third from left (rear), help to lower the body of his 7-year-old son into a grave in a refugee camp in Mogadishu, on Aug. 16.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
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A mother mourns the death of her son at the Banadir hospital on Aug. 16, in Mogadishu. The hospital has been overwhelmed by new patients, as sickness spreads through camps for people displaced by drought and famine.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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A Somali boy receives a ration of cornmeal in the courtyard of a Somali non-governmental organization in Mogadishu.
(Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images)
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.

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Mulmillo closes the eyes of her two-year-old son Mahmud moments after he died from malnutrition and related complications at a local hospital in Mogadishu on Aug. 15. Mulmillo, her husband and three children fled their village in the Lower Shabelle region of southern Somalia and came to Mogadishu in search of a refuge from severe drought in the region.
(Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images)
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A group of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) gather inside a courtyard after being designated to receive food aid from a Kuwaiti based Islamic charity in Mogadishu on Aug. 14.
(Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images)
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A Somali boy sings an Irish song to his classmates during class at the Illeys primary school in Dagahaley refugee camp, north of Dadaab, Eastern Kenya, on Aug. 11.
(Jerome Delay / AP)
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A Somali woman stands with several cans of water, ready to be transported by camel, in the town of Dhobley on Aug. 11.
(Phil Moore / AFP - Getty Images)
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Ethnic Turkana children sing and dance at Kalokutanyang Mobile School as aid workers arrive to inspect them in Kalokutanyang, Turkana, northwestern Kenya, on Aug. 9. A local official says that relief food has not reached many parts of the Turkana region where more than half the population is dependent on it, resulting in increasing child malnutrition.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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A Somali father with his daughter sits at the head of a line with other refugees at a registration center on Aug. 2, at Dagahaley refugee site, after being displaced from their home in southern Somalia by famine.
(Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images)
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Residents of Mwingi District fetch water from a muddy puddle, one of the only sources of clean water in Kenya on Aug. 2.
(Ken Oloo/ / Red Cross and Red Crescent via EPA)
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Somali refugees sit around a makeshift grave for fellow refugee Husein Mahalin, who died at the age of 20, due to illness outside the Ifo camp, one of three that make up the sprawling refugee camp in Dadaab, northeastern Kenya, on Aug. 1.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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A young boy from southern Somalia takes cover under a plastic sheet in a refugee camp in Mogadishu, Somalia, Sunday, July 31. Tens of thousands of famine-stricken Somali refugees were cold and drenched after torrential rains overnight pounded their makeshift structures in the capital, Mogadishu. Rains are needed to plant crops and alleviate the drought that is causing famine in Somalia but on Saturday night the rains added to the misery of refugees who live in structures made of sticks and pieces of cloth.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
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Warehouse attendants carry bags of goods donated during a drive by the Somali community living in Kenya's capital, to aid Somali refugees in Kenya's northeast province at the Dadaab refugee complex, on July 29.
(Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images)
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A newly arrived Somali refugee is forced out of the queue outside a reception centre in the Ifo 2 refugee camp in Dadaab, near the Kenya-Somalia border, on July 28.
(Thomas Mukoya / Reuters)
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Men unload the first airlifted humanitarian food aid at the Aden Abdulle Osman International Airport in Mogadishu, Somalia, on July 27. The World Food Program airlifted 10 tons of emergency supplies to Mogadishu to feed thousands of malnourished children in drought-hit Somalia. Somalia is the country worst affected by a prolonged drought in Eastern Africa -- the region's worst in 60 years -- that has put some 12 million people in danger of starvation and spurred a global fund-raising campaign.
(Feisal Omar / AFP - Getty Images)
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Children drink water from the same place as cattle at Liboi, Kenya, on July 27. UNICEF says it is trying to vaccinate more than 300,000 children in Kenya in an emergency program designed to prevent an outbreak of disease as refugees stream into northern Kenya from famine-hit Somalia.
(Schalk van Zuydam / AP)
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A doctor examines Mihag Gedi Farah, a seven-month-old child with a weight of 7.5lbs (3.4kg), in a field hospital of the International Rescue Committee, IRC, in the town of Dadaab, Kenya, July 26. The U.N. will airlift emergency rations this week to parts of drought-ravaged Somalia to keep hungry refugees from dying along what an official calls the "roads of death." Tens of thousands already have trekked to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, hoping to get aid in refugee camps.
(Schalk Van Zuydam / AP)
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Used food tins are stacked at a field hospital of the International Rescue Committee, IRC, in Dadaab, July 26.
(Schalk Van Zuydam / AP)
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A malnourished child from southern Somalia is weighed in Banadir hospital in Mogadishu, July 24. The World Food Program can't reach 2.2 million Somalis in desperate need of aid in militant-controlled areas of Somalia, meaning refugee camps in nearby Kenya and Ethiopia are likely to continue seeing thousands of new refugees each week.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
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A general view of the Dadaab Refugee camp in eastern Kenya on July 23, where the influx of Somali's displaced by a ravaging famine remains high. 12 million people are struggling from the worst regional drought in decades, affecting parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Uganda.
(Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images)
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Somalian refugees disembark a bus in the registration area of the IFO refugee camp which makes up part of the giant Dadaab refugee settlement, July 23. The refugee camp at Dadaab, located close to the Kenyan border with Somalia, was originally designed in the early 1990s to accommodate 90,000 people but the UN estimates over 4 times as many reside there.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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An aid worker using an iPad films the rotting carcass of a cow in Wajir near the Kenya-Somalia border, July 23. Since drought gripped the Horn of Africa, and especially since famine was declared in parts of Somalia, the international aid industry has swept in and out of refugee camps and remote hamlets in branded planes and snaking lines of white 4x4s. This humanitarian, diplomatic and media circus is necessary every time people go hungry in Africa, analysts say, because governments - both African and foreign - rarely respond early enough to looming catastrophes.
(Barry Malone / Reuters)
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A dust storm blows as newly arrived Somalian refugees settle on the edge of the Dagahaley refugee camp, which makes up part of the giant Dadaab refugee settlement, July 23.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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A Somalian refugee helps to dig a latrine on the outskirts of the IFO refugee camp which makes up part of the giant Dadaab refugee settlement on July 23.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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Somalian refugees wait in the registration area of the Dagahaley refugee camp, part of the Dadaab refugee settlement on July 23.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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Somalian refugees' documents are checked at the entrance to the registration area of the IFO refugee camp, on July 23, in Dadaab, Kenya.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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A mother washes her malnourished child in the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Boders) hospital on July 22, in the Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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Drought-stricken camels drink water from a tank near Harfo, northwest of Somalia's capital Mogadishu, July 20. The United Nations declared famine in two regions of southern Somalia, and warned that this could spread further within two months in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa country unless donors step in.
(Thomas Mukoya / Reuters)
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Farhiya (centre) holds her 7-year-old sister Suladan by the hand as they follow their mother and brothers at the reception center of the Dolo Ado refugee camp near the Ethiopia-Somalia border on July 19. Refugees are being housed at the transit center while a new camp is being set up by the Ethiopian goverment and international aid organizations. Thousands of Somalis have fled in recent months to neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya in search of food and water, with many dying along the way.
(Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images)
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Somalis fleeing hunger in their drought-stricken nation walk along the main road leading from the Somalian border to the refugee camps around Dadaab, Kenya, on Wednesday, July 13. More than 11 million people in the Horn of Africa are confronting the worst drought in decades and need urgent assistance to stay alive, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
(Rebecca Blackwell / AP)
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A woman from southern Somalia struggles to build a makeshift shelter from tree branches at a new camp in Mogadishu, Somalia, on July 13.
(Mohamed Sheikh Nor / AP)
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Osman Ali Aliyow Mursal digs a burial plot among other graves for his four-year-old son, Aden Ibrahim, as men prepare to pray over the boy's body, wrapped in a plastic mat, on the outskirts of Ifo II Camp, outside Dadaab, Kenya, on Tuesday, July 12. Doctors were unable to save Aden, who died of diarrhea-related dehydration after four days of inpatient care. U.N. Refugee Chief Antonio Guterres said Sunday that drought-ridden Somalia is the "worst humanitarian disaster" in the world, after meeting with refugees who endured unspeakable hardship to reach the world's largest refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya.
(Rebecca Blackwell / AP)
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Aden Salaad, 2, looks up at his mother as she bathes him in a tub at a Doctors Without Borders hospital, where Aden is receiving treatment for malnutrition, in Dagahaley Camp, outside Dadaab, Kenya, on Monday, July 11.
(Rebecca Blackwell / AP)
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A Somali child from southern Somalia holds his brother as they wait outside a ruined building before making their way to the internally displaced persons camps in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Friday, July 8.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
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A refugee from Southern Somalia carries her baby and her belongings, as she makes her way to a camp in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Monday, July 5.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.